In his upcoming book, “Futuristic,” Mark Voger explores what might have been had the 1950s and 1960s shaped the aesthetic of space flight and the space age. The book, simply put, is “retro”: a nostalgic celebrations of the Space Age and all its hope and optimism for a better and more humane world.
Marvel’s most recent movie, The Fantastic Four, was a brilliant and spirited defense of the dignity of human life and of the essential goodness of the family. Fascinatingly, its aesthetic was “retro” that of the 1960s—that is, a look at the future as if the future had been envisioned in the 1960s. Buildings and cars are rounded and sleek, looking like something at a World’s Fair or at Disney’s Epcot Center. Metal and glass blend seamlessly into one another, and everything is sleek, shiny, and classy.
Why do I bring this up? Well, you should see The Fantastic Four, now my favorite of the Marvel movies. But, you should also pick up a copy of Futuristic: Rockets, Robots, and Rayguns of Space Age Pop Culture (due out in late October from TwoMorrow’s Publishing) by the extremely talented Mark Voger. A decade or so older than yours truly, Voger is the best pop-culture historian out there. Not only does he write captivatingly, but he lays out all his books in a way that never fails to astonish me. I proudly own several of his previous books, including The Dark Age, Monster Mash, Groovy, Holly Jolly, and Zowie. Each explores some critical aspect of popular culture, as indicated by the titles. Each is siply beautiful, something like a combination of a coffee-table book, a graphic novel, and a Barnes and Noble bestselling hardback. Not only do I proudly own them, but they also hold a place of pride on the Birzer bookshelves.
Futuristic might very well be Mr. Voger’s best, and that’s saying something profound. Like the recent Fantastic Four movie, Voger explores what might have been had the 1950s and 1960s shaped the aesthetic of space flight and the space age. The book, simply put, is “retro”: a nostalgic celebrations of the Space Age and all its hope and optimism for a better and more humane world.
Captivatingly, Voger begins the book by remembering a coffee-cake meeting with his mom, to which he was dragged along as a four-year-old. Plopped in front of the TV as a babysitter so that the housewives could talk, Voger encountered his first glimpse of space: a bizarre French film—silent, no less—from the early part of the twentieth century, called “A Trip to the Moon.” In the film, a rocket embeds itself into the moon, a human face dressed up to look like gooey cheese. Voger, not surprisingly, was amused and repulsed by the film. Regardless, it led him to a life-long love of all things science fiction. Following this, Voger recounts his memories of the 1962 Cuban missile crisis, the 1964 World’s Fair in New York City, and the first episode of the TV show Lost in Space, its early episodes shockingly dark in outlook before it soon became campy. Voger also fondly remembers the TV show, The Land of the Giants, and the DC comic book, Metal Men, all proceeding the first Apollo voyage to the Moon in 1969. As the author puts it succinctly:
Most sources identify the Space Age as commencing in 1957 (with Russia’s launch of the Sputnik satellite) and culminating in 1969 (with the moon landing). I’m aligned with those who think of the Space Age more as a state of mind. It was this sometimes bizarre, sometimes funny, sometimes anxious period that overlapped with the Atomic Age, which itself began with two terrible events: the 1945 bombings of Hiroshima and Nagasaki. These ‘ages’ are inexorably linked. The Atomic Age was problematic at its core (pun intended), with the promise of atomic power overshadowed by the threat of atomic weapons. In contrast, the Space Age struck a more hopeful note—even a patriotic one (we just had to beat those Russkies to the moon).
As he continues, however, he draws no hard distinction between the Atomic Age and the Space Age, noting joyfully that in his memory there was “duck and cover” as well as Tang, fallout shelters, and The Jetsons.
Futuristic insightfully examines the origins of the genre of science fiction, early science fiction movies such as Metropolis (1927) and the Things to Come (1936), and the conniving Lyndon B. Johnson’s horrific and unfair daisy commercial against Barry Goldwater in 1964. “The implication was that Goldwater was more likely to push America into an unwinnable nuclear war than Johnson,” Voger writes, “But the ad was so shocking, and so effective, that the strong and immediate response it garnered drove Johnson’s team to pull it off the air. The campaign ran Daisy once, but it has never been forgotten.” Voger expertly blends pop culture, high culture, and political culture into one, as he continues to examine anti-communism in the era with the shock of Russia’s first successful satellite, Sputnik. Voger also examines a number of television shows from the era, perhaps most importantly, The Twilight Zone, The Outer Limits, and Star Trek, the most artistic of pop culture’s manifestations of the Space Age. For those wanting to take a deep dive into the subject matter, Futuristic includes several excellent interviews with the TV stars of the era, including an insightful one with William Shatner and one with Leonard Nimoy. Voger playfully goes through the prominent toys of the era, including the infamous Gilbert Atomic Energy Lab, which contained actual radioactive material! Perhaps my favorite section of Futuristic comes with Voger’s examination of science fiction novels such as those by George Orwell and Issac Asimov, while not neglecting various pulp stories, magazines, and comic books. Futuristic concludes with telling descriptions of Charlton Heston’s science fiction movies of the late 1960s, and with Voger recounting his college days.
Again, I can’t stress enough how much I like Voger’s books and, especially, Futuristic. As it turns out, I’m working on a book for Creed and Culture Books on Ray Bradbury as “Prophet of the Space Age” (due out in early 2028). Without question, I will be relying on, consulting, and citing Futuristic.
Even though I wasn’t born until late 1967, I too long for the Space Age of my earliest childhood, and I still repeatedly make my older brothers tell me their memories of the moon landing—as they stayed up late and turned on their porch lights to let the astronauts know we loved them. I was too young to understand this then, but Futuristic helps me imagine just what Americans were so enthusiastic and patriotic about.
Oh yeah… we did beat the Russkies.
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